


Pressure

by LunaVitaeSuae



Series: Tumblr stuff [6]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Cutting, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 20:32:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8223911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaVitaeSuae/pseuds/LunaVitaeSuae
Summary: Reader self-harms. The Hamilsquad is here to help.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This work involves self-harming, so if you can't handle it, this is not for you. If I haven't portrayed this very well, shoot me a message and let me know. I'm not great at writing some things and this is one of them.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

You looked up, Hercules was standing in the doorway, surrounded by John, Alex, and Laf. You were sitting in the bathroom, sleeve hiked up, razorblade to your skin. Your eyes filled with tears.

John pushed past Herc and gently kneeled in front of you. He turned slightly and grabbed a tissue, blotting out the few drops of blood you had already drawn. You barely felt his touch, already sinking into a haze. Hercules grabbed the first aid kit out of the cabinet and started handing John supplies. 

When he finished, Alex motioned out of the door. “We need to talk.”

You let yourself be led to the living room of the apartment you shared with the guys and sat on the couch. You immediately grabbed your blanket, always on the couch for you, and wrapped it around your body. Herc’s hand remained on your shoulder and you shrugged it off, not wanting to be touched at the moment.

The guys all situated themselves around the room and waited for you to say something. You couldn’t think right now. Being pulled out of the bathroom before you could finish hadn’t gotten you to your quiet place, not yet. Your mind had started buzzing again the moment you had sat down.

“Mon ami, talk to us.”

You closed your eyes and put your head down on your knees, wrapping your arms around you.

“(Y/N), please,” John pleaded. “We can’t help if we don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Too loud.”

“What?”

“It’s too loud,” you repeated, words muffled against your legs. “It’s too loud and I need it to stop.”

“What’s too loud?” Hercules asked gently. 

“Me,” you whispered, head coming up. Your tears had started falling and you could feel the warm track that led down your face.

Alex got up and left the room. He didn’t say a word but you felt like that meant he was disgusted with you. When he returned a few minutes later, he was carrying a steaming mug. He held it out to you and when you stared at it blankly, he sighed and put it on the table beside you. You peeked over and saw that it was hot chocolate, with the little marshmallows, just like you liked.

You slowly emerged from your blanket and grasped it gingerly. Took a sip and let the scalding liquid burn a path down your throat. 

After a few more minutes of silence, Hercules stood up and started pacing.

“(Y/N), why? Why are you cutting?”

You took a moment to set down your now empty cup and curled up again.

“Sometimes, I feel, I feel so out of control. I can’t h-handle things. When I get overwhelmed, by school, by my family, I feel like I have this giant ball of hot poison in me. I have to let it out.” You felt a deep shame course through you as you told them. You didn’t want them to think any less of you, to feel like you needed to be handled like delicate glass.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Alex spoke up from across the room.

“Because you wouldn’t understand. Because this is something I need to deal with on my own. Because it’s none of your goddamned business.” Your words were quite, not conveying anything more than exhaustion. 

“Bullshit.”

Lafayette sat up and looked at you. “You’re our friend. We care about you so much. If you are not okay, we,” he gestured at the guys surrounding you, “we are not okay.” 

John moved across the room and sat down beside you. You felt cold and all of a sudden you were overwhelmed by a need to touch someone, anyone. You leaned forward and rested your head on his shoulder, ignoring the tears that fell onto his shirt. 

“(Y/N), baby girl, we’ll help you get through this, okay? We are here for you.” His hand came up and started rubbing your back comfortingly. The other guys all nodded.

“The next time you feel the need to cut, get one of us. Call, text, yell, and we’ll be here for you.” You nodded against John’s shoulder and he pulled you in for a tight hug. “If you need to talk, we’ll talk. If you need to get rid of energy, we’ll go for a run. We want you to be okay.”

 

Two days later, you were at home alone. You had just gotten off the phone with your mother. You sat on the couch and stared at your phone blankly. Suddenly you surged up and threw your phone, angry. It bounced off the wall with a thunk and landed face-down on the floor. You ignored the sound of glass shattering. 

Just then, the front door swung open and Hercules walked in. He took stock of the situation. Shattered phone on the floor, (Y/N) on the couch, tears in her eyes, a storm of electric energy in the air. He carefully sat down his bag and walked over to you.

“What do you need?”

You made grabby hands in his direction and he took both of yours in his as he sat down next to you. You wrapped his arms around you and pulled him in your direction so that he was leaning on you. You burrowed further underneath him so that he was practically lying flat on top of you.

“I’m not hurting you, am I?” You shook your head no. It might have been a little uncomfortable, but the pressure was just what you needed. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” You thought for a minute and shrugged. “You don’t have to tell me everything, you can just tell me basics.”

“My-my family, they’re moving. Across the country. And my mother expects me to pack up and transfer just so I can be nearby. But, I can’t, I won’t. I’m almost done with my degree and I can’t leave you. You guys, that is.” You finished hurriedly, hoping he hadn’t caught your slip. This was definitely NOT the time to confess your feelings for your roommate and longtime friend.

“Babe, if you don’t want to leave, they can’t make you. And if they try, they’ll have to pry you from our cold, dead fingers.” You laughed a little and relapsed into silence. After a few more minutes, the pressure in your body had lessened and you tapped Herc. 

He sat up and gave you space until you wrapped his arm back around you and that’s how you stayed until the rest of your friends came home.

 

Fast forward a few more days. You were lying in bed, trying to plan out your schedule for the next week. Finals were coming up and you needed to find time to study. That, and fit in your work schedule, your classes, time to eat and sleep, and then, and then. 

Your chest started feeling tight. There wasn’t enough time. There wasn’t enough time and you were going to end up failing all of your classes. Your breath started faster and harsher and somehow you ended up in the bathroom. 

Staring down at the small box of blades you kept tucked in your tampons, where you knew the guys would never voluntarily venture.

You knew you shouldn’t. You should wait for one of the guys to come home. You should call someone. You swore as you remembered throwing and breaking your phone. You hadn’t had time to get a new one yet. Your fingers itched as you slowly pulled a fresh one out. Took off the little protective casing. 

You stared at it. How could something so small be so… Big? It sat in your hand, weighing what seemed like fifty pounds. And getting heavier by the second. It dragged your hand down, down, down, until it rested against your other arm, blade sitting lightly against your skin. Your eyes were drawn to the faint scars lining the skin from your wrist to elbow. Prodded a particularly old one with the corner of the blade. Watched a small bead of blood pop up as you broke through the skin. 

With just that one prick, the weight on your chest seemed to lessen. But it was still present. You led the blade along that old scar, opening the healing skin once more. You hated yourself for doing this. You were letting everyone down. They’d hate this. They’d hate you. 

The drops of blood welling in the cut splashed apart and scattered. You were crying. Tears fell straight onto your arm and mixed with the blood. You didn’t want to be here, doing this. But you had to. It was the only thing; the only way you could feel better. 

When you had come back to yourself, you gathered everything up, throwing away the used razorblade. Everything else went back into its spot. You cleaned your wound and went back to your room, where you slipped on a fresh, long-sleeved shirt and crawled into bed. You sluggishly pushed everything off of your bed into a haphazard pile on the floor and curled up into a tight ball under your blanket. Sleep took you away.

When you awoke, it was to the sound of hushed whispers outside your door. You slowly got up, blanket wrapped around you, and opened the door. Your four roommates were standing there. Alex was holding bloody tissues you had tossed in the trash. When you opened the door, they all looked at you, eyes wide like deer caught in headlights.

“We… we were just coming to check on you. Alex found bloody tissue and wanted to make sure you were okay,” Lafayette explained.

“Uh, I’m fine. I, I just got a bloody nose. Seasonal allergies.” You wrapped the blanket tighter around you, ignoring the disbelieving looks you were given. 

“We also wanted to see if you were hungry. John’s making pasta.” Hercules looked at John for confirmation and John nodded. Hercules looked back at you pleadingly.

You gave a faint smile and nodded at them. You tossed your blanket on your bed and headed out into the hall. 

Hercules hung back as the others headed to the kitchen. He grabbed your injured arm, fingers going to the exact spot on your arm that you had given your attention to earlier. You let out a little hiss of pain at the contact. 

He stiffened and looked at his hand. When he looked back up at you, his eyes were carefully blank. You pulled your arms away and crossed them in front of you, rubbing your arms like you were cold. 

“I just wanted to check on you again, ask if you’ve talked to your parents again.” 

“No, I haven’t told them I broke my phone.”

Hercules opened his mouth to speak again and then closed him mouth with a frown. You noticed he was looking at your arm again and you looked down. You had started bleeding again, and it had bled through your sleeve.

“(Y/N),” he whispered, pulling you toward him again, this time to encase you in a hug. You stood there silently, not wanting to hug him back and risk getting your blood on him as well. 

“Guys?” John had doubled back to see what was taking you so long. You ducked out of Herc’s arms and turned back toward your room. 

“Be right out! I, uh, I got something on my shirt. I need to change really quick,” you called over your shoulder, closing your door with a snap. Hercules and John exchanged a long look and Herc nodded at him sadly. John retreated back to the kitchen, with a quick look at your door.

Hercules walked over to your door and knocked quietly. You opened it and peeked out through the crack.

“Yes?”

“Can I come in?” You debated momentarily and then stepped back from the door, allowing access. He slipped in and closed the door behind him. You turned back to your closet and dug out a new long-sleeved shirt. You slipped off the old one and Hercules did his best to give you a modicum of privacy as your bare back, broken only by a slim dark bra, was flashed at him.

“Did you have something you wanted to say, or did you just come to ogle me?”

Herc remained silent, looking at the schedule you had attempted to make earlier today. He could see all the hurried lines and attempts to make everything fit.

Once he was sure that you were dressed, he walked toward you and pulled up your sleeve. You stiffened but allowed it. His hand brushed the first few lines of raised skin and stopped as they reached your fresh cut.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not- not as much as it used to.”

“How did you start?”

You thought back and formulated your words.

“When I was in high school, my dad got sick.” Herc nodded, you had told your friends about your family before. “And when he died, everything in my life seemed like it was the end of the world. One day, I was trying to make dinner for my mom, and I cut myself. And it wasn’t even like it hurt. It just happened. And I realized it was the first time that I didn’t feel anything. No pain, no hurt, no missing my dad so much that it felt like I couldn’t breathe. And after that, I did anything I could to get that quiet. I got into fights. After I got suspended the second time, I found a pocket knife that my dad had used when he’d go on his hunting trips. And I wondered what it’d be like to just die, cut my wrists and find him on the other side. But I never got that far. 

“I ended up in the hospital. My mother was more concerned that I had bled on her expensive carpets than the fact that her oldest child had just tried-

“Well, after that, I got better. Smaller slices, never too deep, never to obvious. It was my coping mechanism. It became the one thing in life I could control.

“And now? Now it’s just there. I can’t stop it most of the time and when I do, I hate it. I hate it so much but I don’t know how to stop.”

When you finished talking, Hercules reached his hand to your face and wiped away a small tear you hadn’t even known was there. He took your unmarked arm and led you out of the bedroom to the bathroom. He silently sat you on the counter and pulled out the first aid kit again. He smeared on the antibiotic cream and rolled gauze around your arm. When he finished taping it off, you went to slide off of the counter, but he stopped you.

“(Y/N), will you let me help you?” You searched his eyes, dark and fathomless, as they stared into your own. You nodded slowly. You slipped down, this time unhindered, and went to the cabinet. You pulled out the box of tampon and shook out the small, unassuming box. You stared at it, shifting it in your hand, as if you could see through the thin cardboard and plastic to the gleaming metal inside. You turned back to Hercules, hand extended to him. 

He looked down at the box and gently lifted it away from you. He slipped it into his pocket and pulled you toward him. You thought he was going in for another hug, but he simply placed his hands on your shoulders and looked down at you briefly, before pressing a small kiss to your forehead. 

“I’m proud of you, (Y/N). I’m so proud.” Now he did hug you, and you sunk into his embrace, feeling lighter than you had in a long while. You would get better. You could do this.


End file.
